Cut (Helen/Claudia)
This isn’t for everybody, Helen knew it from day one.
The first time she was looking into her own eyes - so tired, so guilty, so lost, so… old - she couldn’t find her voice for minutes. But it gave her a chance to make things right, to keep things right and the shock of meeting her alter ego from a world she hoped never to experience soon faded away.
She thought Claudia was like her, that she would handle the weight of knowledge but she was wrong.
The first time it happened was only weeks after they first saw Jenny Lewis, dark-haired, high-heeled, annoyingly bossy, the spitting image of Claudia, and yet… the difference sunk into Helen’s flesh like sharp claws. Claudia seemed fine, she laughed, she shared her hypotheses, she kissed with passion and Helen couldn’t taste the desperation on her tongue. She should have seen it coming.
-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-
An empty bottle of sleeping pills.
The shrill sound of sirens.
Claudia’s body lifted into the ambulance.
-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-
She pulled through but only just.
Helen was more careful after that. She didn’t take Claudia to trips where they could run into Jenny or anyone Claudia might know from her own life and she kept watching for signs of distress like a guard-dog, jealously guarding what was her own.
-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-
The dull thud was almost swallowed by the chiming of bells.
It was Sunday when Claudia tried to hang herself.
-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-
Helen barely left her side after that but she knew better than to cling to false hope. Suicide often seems to go hand in hand with inventiveness. If Helen saw the knife slide up Claudia’s sleeve she didn’t say.
-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-
She turns the handle and pushes the door open.
Light brown hair falls over the edge of the bathtub in soft waves.
Blood seeps through Helen’s clothes as she holds the barely breathing body close.
She pushes a stray strand out of the pale face and smiles.
“Sweet dreams, Claudia Brown.”
-^-^-^-^------------